Beyond the Blades: Resilience in Women’s Hockey with Kim McCullough

We got the opportunity to speak with Kim McCullough, who runs her own organization, Total Female Hockey, and works for the Toronto Leaside Wildcats. We wanted to speak with McCullough as she works exclusively on the female game, girl power!

 

 

McCullough focuses on physicality, initiating and using contact with confidence; “it’s my bread and butter,” McCullough exclaims. This topic is unique in the women’s game as players aren’t allowed to body check one another.

In the attempt to protect the players, along with gaining and keeping possession of the puck, McCullough creates, along with many others, simple drills for initiating safe contact. She finds that many players haven’t received the proper training or even know how to give and receive contact safely, making it nerve wracking and intimidating for players to approach others. She starts with something simple, a basic drill, and continues to build on it with time. Some of the drills include ones moving linearly and around a circle.

Puck protection goes hand in hand with physicality. This is another topic McCullough focuses on, as it’s one of the most crucial skills for players to learn and understand. Puck protection is extremely important in the female game, as mentioned above, female players don’t get the advantage of body checking others. Some skills McCullough teaches to further educate her players on puck protection and safe contact include taking puck from air to stick, drive skating, building a wall and an escape route, spinning away from pressure, scanning to find seams, attacking seams with quick feet – shin to protect and leading with the puck, and reloading to the hash/slot to hunt rebounds.

Here are 2 of Coach Kim's Puck Protection Drills: 

 

• 1v1 Keepaway In Circle To 1v1 Back

 

 

• 1v1 Corner Keepaway

 

 

The concept of winning the walls is one that McCullough teaches frequently. The goal here is to help players build up their confidence and win battles along the wall while maintaining puck possession. She asks, “do you come out of battles along the wall with possession or not?”, “are you able to get your head up to scan the ice and make your next decision/play quickly?”, and “if you lose the initial battle for possession, are you able to regain middle position quickly so that you can contain the puck carrier along the wall?”. The following key points are outlined in drills she’s created to address these questions. For the puck carrier -- use your body to gain inside position, build an escape route and give yourself a stick length amount of space between you and the wall, spin off your check and accelerate out of contact to skate through the gate. For the defender – regain the middle position to protect the gate if you lose the possession battle, look for a pin and keep your chest facing the attacker, and control your stick – use stick lifts and/or body on stick to regain possession.

As mentioned above, physicality and puck possession are two of McCullough's main focuses. These skills are incredibly important in the female game. If you’d like to see more or learn more about Coach Kim, you can visit one of the links above or check out her Instagram!

 

Written by Kelsey Dold 

May 25, 2023

 

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